Cloudy Future

Mostly Pleasant But Largely Superfluous? Some Predictions Are That Local Tv Weather Forecasters Face A Big Chill

November 30, 1990|By Rick Kogan, TV/radio critic.

He was Chicago`s first famous weathercaster, a kindly looking, broad-faced man who worked at WBBM-Ch. 2 from 1954 to 1968. A former newspaper reporter and cartoonist, Hoff brought wit and whimsy to his weathercasts, using cartoon sketches of such characters as the ``Vice President of Looking Out the Window`` and ``Mr. Yell `n` Cuss.``

His act, like those of contemporaries across the U.S. (Albert the Alleycat was a fixture for almost two decades at WITI in Milwaukee), was a manifestation of still-nascent-TV and weather-forecasting technology.

In order to make their segments more lively, weathercasters-who lacked the advantage of today`s weather satellites, fancy graphics and lively colors- embellished the weather news with cartoons, puppets, jokes and assorted shtick.

A new twist came in the late `60s and early `70s with the ``weather girl.`` Generally good looking and shapely, most of these young women had few qualifications. One San Francisco station actually hired a former Playboy magazine Playmate of the year as its weathercaster.

In 1974, WBBM hired Melody Rogers, an attractive commercial actress, to do the weather. The station`s news director, Van Gordon Sauter, said, ``If she comes across as an actress or a giddy broad or a sex bomb, we`ve failed.``

They failed. And subsequent female weathercasters have had a difficult time being taken seriously in Chicago, though none has been as embarrassing as WLS-Ch. 7`s boorish Dr. Dave Eisner, the ``Dr.`` referring to his degree in podiatry.

The front lines

Male weathercasters have ruled Chicago`s airwaves.

None has been more popular, capable or controversial than Coleman.

He was the wildest part of the happy-talk team that dominated local ratings in the `70s at WLS, where he won a local Emmy for a series on tornadoes. He left in 1977 to work for ``Good Morning, America,`` started the Weather Channel in 1983 (the year he was named broadcaster of the year by the American Meteorological Society), and finally returned to Chicago as the principal weathercaster for WMAQ.

Earlier this year the station released him, and his 10 p.m. spot was filled, at least temporarily, by Jim Tilmon, one of the country`s first black weathermen and a WMAQ employee since 1970. Low key and straightforward, Tilmon is not a meteorologist but seems to have picked up plenty from his years as a commercial airline pilot.

The dean of Chicago`s weathercasters is Harry Volkman, who received the American Meteorological Society`s seal of approval in 1960. He has been with WBBM since 1978 after lengthy stints with WGN and WMAQ since 1959. His style, avuncular and homespun, is easy to take. He is a meteorologist who relishes his frequent trips to schools to share his passion.

But the station`s principal forecaster is Steve Baskerville, who became the first black network weathercaster when he joined ``The CBS Morning News`` in 1984. He came to WBBM in 1988 and displays more flair with fluffy feature spots than weather reports, which are burdened by his stabs at humor. Mike Tsolinas is the station`s slick and sun-tanned third-stringer.

WLS` main man is Steve Deshler, another ``CBS Morning News`` veteran and a solid if purposely stiff performer. The station`s early news broadcasts feature the fine and frisky Jerry Taft (AMS, 1978) and a vacuous Andy Avalos

If these men-as well as WMAQ`s aggressively perky Roberta Gonzales and Marie Michelini, who often looks like a deer caught in a car`s headlights-could be said to share a similar quality, and this is not meant

derogatorily, it is innocuousness.

They all appear to be nice, uncomplicated people, none very hard on the eyes or the brain. There are subtle differences in their manner and mannerisms, but most strain for the sort of go-down-easy give-it-to-`em-straight style that is increasingly pervasive, save for Scott, on the national scene. Many have salaries in six figures.

Respect? That`s another matter.

``Weatherman is the only job in the world in which mistakes pay,`` says Ross George, the production manager of a suburban mail-order cosmetics firm, a friend of mine who has had many golf dates ruined by faulty forecasts. ``There is no accountability. If someone screws up at work, I give them a couple breaks. But after three or four foulups I`d have no choice but to let them go. Being a weatherman means that you have the only job that pays you for being wrong.``

Maybe not the only job. Stockbrokers make financially damaging predictions. Baseballs go through shortstops` legs. But no people live on as active a roller coaster as do TV weathercasters: cursed or praised almost daily for things over which they have no control.